CIENA’S METRO NETWORKING SOLUTIONS GRANTED ‘RUS ACCEPTANCE’ BY USDA’S RURAL UTILITIES SERVICE
Enables CIENA and Its Reseller Partners To Help Independent Service Providers More Profitably Rollout Broadband Access and Advanced Data Services in Rural Areas
Linthicum, MD — 10/30/2003Ciena® Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), a leading global provider of innovative network solutions, today announced that the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has granted “RUS Acceptance” to the company’s metro networking solutions.
This enables independent telephone and utility companies to obtain low-interest financial assistance from the Rural Utilities Service for the purchase and deployment of Ciena’s ONLINE Metro™ and MetroDirector K2™ multiservice platforms in order to help bring broadband services and Internet access to rural areas of the United States. In turn, RUS Acceptance also helps pave new market opportunities for Ciena and its reseller partners.
“Achieving RUS Acceptance status allows Ciena and its partners to help independent service providers overcome some of the challenges of profitably delivering broadband services across rural markets,” said Francois Locoh-Donou, vice president of marketing at Ciena. “Like all service providers today, these companies are seeking economical network solutions to exploit the opportunities in both traditional service markets and advanced data services. Ciena’s multiservice platforms are ideal for securing the high-bandwidth capacity and carrier-class reliability required for the convergence of next-generation voice, video and data services.”
Ciena's ONLINE Metro and MetroDirector K2 also successfully met the RUS Buy American requirement for final manufacture and assembly in the United States or eligible countries.
ONLINE Metro delivers multiple services through intelligent Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technology combined with industry leading service aggregation, and is designed for enterprises and service providers offering a variety of data, voice and storage services over a single optical infrastructure. It provides the scalability, flexibility and reach that service providers in rural communities need to deliver traditional and emerging services throughout their networks.
MetroDirector K2 helps service providers extract increased revenue and performance from their existing infrastructure, and is designed for increasing the efficiency and availability of bandwidth. MetroDirector K2 uniquely supports ATM, Ethernet and traditional TDM services over SONET topologies, making it an ideal solution for DSL aggregation and other voice, video and data services.
Ciena Corporation delivers innovative network solutions to the world's largest service providers and enterprises, increasing the cost-efficiency of current services while enabling the creation of new carrier-class data services built upon the existing network infrastructure. Additional information about Ciena can be found at www.ciena.com.
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions of Ciena (the Company) that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this release, including but not limited to the features and benefits of Ciena’s products, are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof. The Company’s actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements, due to risks and uncertainties associated with the Company’s business, which include the risk factors disclosed in the Company’s Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 21, 2003. Forward looking statements include statements regarding the Company’s expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward looking words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “should,” “will,” and “would” or similar words. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Nicole Anderson
Ciena Corporation
(877) 857 -7377
pr@ciena.com
Marie Downing
Ciena Corporation
(888) 243-6223
ir@ciena.com
